Portland took the lead midway through the second half and was up by as many as seven points with a little more than seven minutes to play.

But then Santa Clara began to unfurl some of its own formidable weapons, Butler, Rhea, Annas and guards Thomas, Kayla Huss and Jen Bradley, and regained the lead, 80-79, on Annas' steal and lay-in with five minutes, 10 seconds to go.

Shortly after that, the Broncos went ahead for good on Butler's muscle-shot inside, although the outcome remained very much in doubt until the final 30 seconds, when Thomas and Annas each managed to hit one free throw in two opportunities, and Portland's Giles missed a long 3-point attempt that could have tied the game at 93 with four seconds to play.

"I don't think we were as mentally focused as we needed to be to start the game," Bento said, "but the last six or seven minutes, you saw a different intensity. We fought very hard then and kept our composure. We could have folded and we didn't."

Butler, who is playing for her third head coach at Santa Clara in four seasons, said she felt the Broncos lost focus when Portland (which fell to 8- 11, 2-4) was making its second-half run, and added, "I think maybe a lot of us didn't come to play tonight, and you can't do that, because you just can't take anybody in this league lightly.

"But our inside-outside game helped us a lot. We've tried to work very hard on that."

The double-barreled attack led to 56.7 percent shooting from the field by Santa Clara. Portland was almost as good, at 54.7 percent.

Four players from each team wound up in the double-figure scoring column. Butler, before fouling out late, had 23 in just 23 minutes (because of foul trouble) for Santa Clara, Thomas had 18, Annas 17 and Huss 12 (and eight assists). Rhea had eight points and seven rebounds. The Pilots' O'Rielly- Williams led all scorers with 25, while Seltzer added 17 (including four 3- pointers), Dalgleish 15 and Giles 13.

While conceding that the offensive numbers were nice, Bento, who has emphasized defense all season, wasn't happy that her team gave up 90 points, 11 more than in any previous game this season.